Great Hill VP moves roles

Happy Friday!

This seems to be the last day for a lot of folks out there until after the holiday. If you’re done after today, have a great holiday. We’ll be back next week, then we’ll be off until early January. (I’ll remind you again next week, Dear Reader).

Moves:A Great Hill Partners vice president who worked on the firm’s G/O Media investment left the firm and has landed at BV Investment Partners. Eric Ahlgren, who joined BV this month as a principal, served on G/O Media’s board.

Ahlgren worked at Great Hill since 2016, before which he spent two year at Bessemer Venture Partners, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Great Hill’s G/O Media investment has been roiled by staff turnover at some of the company’s titles, including Deadspin, which has produced scant editorial content over the past few weeks, according to a Dec. 10 report from New York Post.The last articles on Deadspin’s front page date from Nov. 4, when its remaining editorial staff left the company. Deadspin had a mass exodus of editorial folks after interim editor-in-chief Barry Petchesky was fired in late October for not sticking strictly to sports coverage.

Staffers had also complained about auto-play video ads popping up on sites, leading to reader complaints, New York Times reported at the time.

G/O Media, led by CEO Jim Spanfeller, who Great Hill installed after it bought the company in April, has no plans to sell the site, NY Post said.

Great Hill made the G/O Media investment through its sixth fund, which raised $1.5 billion in 2017.

Sad: If you spend any significant time around the Philadelphia/South Jersey area, then you probably have a special place in your heart for a little convenience store chain called Wawa. The hoagies, the soft pretzels, the coffee … ahhh.

Wawa, sadly, is not immune to the dangers of our modern connected world. Wawa’s CEO Chris Gheysens told customers in a Dec. 19 letter the company discovered malware on its payment processing servers on Dec. 10, and contained it by Dec. 12. The malware affected customer payment information used at potentially all Wawa stores at various times after March 4, until it was contained, the letter said.

The malware affected payment card information, including credit and debit numbers, expiration dates and cardholder names on payment cards used potentially at all Wawa in-store payment terminals and fuel dispensers, the letter said.

Reading list: LLR Partners at its annual forum for portfolio company CEOs this year asked the executives to list the business and leadership books that helped them build companies. This blog post from Kristy DelMuto, vice president of strategic marketing at LLR Partners, lists 21 titles, including Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet; Traction by Gino Wickman; Essentialism by Greg McKeown; and Shoe Dog by Phil Knight.

Top Scoops

Bain & Co, the consultancy, is expanding its PE due diligence offerings to include the acquisition of Pyxis, Sarah Pringle writes. The two firms worked on more than 50 diligence engagements to date, Pringle said. Check it out here.

Ex-TPG big Bill McGlashan wants prosecutors to give up information that may help prove he is innocent of charges related to a nationwide college admissions scandal, I wrote on Buyouts. The government has been stonewalling his info requests, according to a recent court filing. Check it out.
That’s it! Have a great rest of your day. Hit me up as always with tips n’ gossip, feedback or just to chat at cwitkowsky@buyoutsinsider.com, on Twitter or find me on LinkedIn.